


The Next Way Home

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-23
Updated: 2007-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Visits back to Earth are overwhelming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cate.

Visits back to Earth are overwhelming. Each one reminds Rodney that for all Atlantis' breadth, its scope, for all the exasperations, the noise and the bustle of three hundred lives lived in such close proximity—for all that, it is like no city back on Earth. Everything seems too much here, too much space and not enough, all at once. A trip to the grocery store is overwhelming, full of shrieking kids and canned music piped over speakers, and even the prospect of acquiring more processed sugar than he's seen in months is barely enough to keep Rodney from turning on his heel and fleeing the place. His hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel the whole way home.

When he gets back to his apartment, he dumps the bags of groceries on the kitchen table, shuffles through to the sitting room and kicks off his shoes. He sits on the sofa and scrubs at his eyes. Earth is tiring and he's _tired_, and Jesus he must be old that he's seriously considering just lying down right where he is and taking a nap, rather than going back into the SGC and putting in a good Saturday's work, showing Sam just where she's mistaken.

He considers it; and then the next thing he knows, the dull red LCD display on the front of his DVD player is telling him that it's late afternoon, his face is mashed into the sofa cushions, there's a blanket over him, and a warm weight stretched out along his back.

"W's'it?" he mumbles, shifting and turning his head just enough that he gets a mouth full of dark hair. He pulls back a little, just enough to say "Oh. Y'back?"

"Obv'sly," John says. He sounds a little more than half asleep, but Rodney knows John, knows all the moods of his body—John's awake. His body is lying tense the length of the sofa, his bare feet tucked up against Rodney's calves for warmth, one arm slung tightly around Rodney's waist, resting on the bare skin where his t-shirt has rucked up.

"Tough day?" Rodney asks. He reaches down to stroke John's arm, the fine, sensitive skin at his wrist, up beneath the sleeve of his hoodie to where the pulse is stronger, the skin more heated; the hairs of John's arm tickle against his fingertips.

"Mmpfh," John says, a grunt of great meaning and significance and weight which Rodney translates as '_sucky_ day' and 'horrible SGC'. There's a grumbling kind of undercurrent, a vibrato of discontent, which can only mean that John got stuck in traffic on the I-25 again, that he got stuck once more with one of the white sedans from the car pool, the ones with the automatic transmission and the uncomfortable seats; Rodney's never seen him drive one without his jaw clenched, fingers tapping an unnerved staccato against the steering wheel.

"S'a sucky day," Rodney agrees. John says nothing, but shuffles closer to him, so that he's pressed as close to Rodney as it's possible to be, John's heartbeat echoing and rebounding throughout Rodney's ribcage. Rodney sighs and makes a command decision; he's gotten sadly good at these during his time on Atlantis. He cracks open an eyelid and peers at John. "Pizza later," he commands, abandoning his plans to cook in favour of the instant gratification of grease and melted cheese, "Nap now, sex much later?"

"Mmm," John says, approval in the tone of his voice, the stretch of his body, and Rodney twists around further so that he can wrap an arm around John in return.

Visits back to Earth are always overwhelming—each one reminds Rodney that for all of Atlantis' people, for all of Earth's crowds, that he has found company enough for him in the circle of John's arms. Overwhelming and startling, the fact that no matter where he is, so much of himself has been given over to this one man: overwhelming and strangely welcome. It's four o'clock, and he thinks he can sleep a little longer, that they can sleep a little longer, wrapped up in one another; he presses a kiss to John's temple, the corner of his eye, grumbles at him until John's hip is no longer pressed against his belly, and he hums as he falls asleep.


End file.
